Washington's cities and counties got faster at permits last year, at least by the state's own scorecard. The catch: the permit every builder needs for every house and apartment building, the building permit, is no longer on that scorecard, and the state's decision deadlines don't cover it.
Meanwhile, multifamily housing, exactly the kind of housing the deadlines were written to speed up, is the one kind of permit where median review times still run past the deadline. Here is what the 2025 report from the Washington State Department of Commerce shows, what a new 2026 law changes about your clock, and what to do before your next submittal.
The scorecard got better, but it measures less
The Department of Commerce's 2025 report covers the 51 cities and counties that must report, and 50 of them did. The headline numbers are genuinely good: the median permit was decided 13 days ahead of its state deadline, after running 17 days late in 2024, and 42 jurisdictions met or beat the deadlines, up from 33.
Look at the first panel, though. Reported decisions fell from 2,774 to 1,731, and the Department of Commerce says the drop is likely due to building permits leaving the count. Two more cautions: it says the 2024 figures were “not a true reflection” of deadline performance, since cities did not have to adopt the new deadlines until 2025, and that much of the subdivision gain likely comes from a change in how review cycles were reported. Read the improvement as real but directional.
Building permits just dropped off the state's radar
This is the part builders should care about most. In 2025 the Legislature passed a short bill with one key sentence: a “project permit” “does not include building permits.” The House analysis says that takes building permits out of the permit review requirements, including the deadlines.
What that means in practice:
- No state clock. The 65, 100 and 170-day decision deadlines apply to project permits such as land use, site and multifamily approvals, not to your building permit.
- No state refund. The late-decision refunds below are tied to those deadlines, so they don't reach building permits either.
- No state count. Cities and counties no longer have to report building permits to the Department of Commerce, which says building permits “typically represent a substantial portion” of the permits a jurisdiction handles.
So when the state says permits got faster, it is not talking about the permit you need before you can start building. And if your city is slow on a building permit, the state's late-decision refund does not apply to you. If you want to know how long your building permits take, keep your own log, and check whether your city publishes its own numbers. We compared measured building permit times across cities in How Long Does a Building Permit Take?.
Multifamily is still where the deadlines break
Multifamily housing is the only kind of permit whose 2025 median ran past its deadline: 77 days against 65 for permits with no public notice, and 110.5 days against 100 for permits with notice. Permits with notice and a hearing stayed inside their 170 days but got about 20 days slower than in 2024. Construction permits, which in this report mean site and civil work, came in under their deadlines.
The per-city tables tell the same story. By our tally of the report's Appendix A, 106 of the 259 multifamily decisions (41%) went past the deadline, against 154 of 992 construction permit decisions (16%).
Some deadlines are longer than you think, too. The law lets a jurisdiction set its own periods for some permit types. Five (Bonney Lake, Camas, Covington, Kent and Olympia) set the deadline for the simplest multifamily permits 55 days longer than the state's 65, and Tumwater set one construction permit type 115 days longer. Before you plan a schedule around 65 days, check what your jurisdiction adopted.
The clock stops. Your calendar doesn't.
The deadline generally counts only the days an application is in the city's hands. When the city sends you a written request for more information, the clock pauses until you answer, and it also pauses for appeals and any extension you agree to. That is fair, but it means “met the deadline” and “fast” are not the same thing.
Seattle's 35 multifamily decisions in 2025 averaged 789 calendar days to process, including paused time, of which 257 counted against the deadline. Shoreline averaged 843 calendar days, Bellevue 763. The averages include some older applications decided in 2025. At the other end, Everett and Vancouver averaged 64 and 44 calendar days, with almost no paused time.
Every request for more information adds time to your schedule without adding a day to the city's clock. One way to shorten that gap is to give reviewers fewer reasons to send one. Permavia's Intake Completeness Check confirms every required form, plan and supporting document in your packet is present and complete, and its Permit Review Diagnostic flags code issues and cross-sheet inconsistencies before you submit. Permavia reviews residential permit plans today.
The 2026 law tightens the clock for applicants
A 2026 law, in effect since June 11, 2026, rewrote parts of the clock. The final bill report is the plainest summary. The good news for applicants:
- Completeness is a checklist, not a review. Cities and counties still have 28 days to tell you whether your application is complete, and silence means it is. Now the determination is procedural only: it can't depend on whether your information is adequate or sufficient.
- Districts are on a clock. On residential projects, special purpose and public utility districts get 15 calendar days to flag an incomplete referral and 45 business days to comment, with up to 60 more business days for complex work and 120 calendar days at most. Miss it, and they refund 20% of their civil plan or infrastructure review fee.
- Late decisions still cost the city. A decision late by up to 20% of the period refunds 10% of the permit fee; later than that, 20%. Jurisdictions that adopted at least three streamlining measures can be exempt.
And the fine print: the clock now also pauses while a fee is unpaid or a notice isn't posted, while the city has finished all the work it can and is waiting on another agency, and while an environmental impact statement is prepared. You can also waive or extend a deadline in writing, so read any extension request before you sign it.
- 1Completeness check28 days
The city or county has 28 days to say in writing whether your application is complete. Silence means it is complete.
New in 2026: the check is procedural only. It can’t turn on whether your information is adequate.
- 2Decision clock65 · 100 · 170
Days. No notice: 65. Public notice: 100. Notice and a hearing: 170. Counted from completeness.
- The clock pauses
- While you answer a written request for more information
- New: while a fee is unpaid or a notice isn’t posted
- New: while the city has done all it can and waits on another agency
- New: while an environmental impact statement is prepared
- For appeals, and any extension you agree to in writing
- Late decision refund10% or 20%
10% of the permit fee if the decision is late by up to 20% of the period; 20% if later. Cities that adopted at least three streamlining measures can be exempt.
One permit responsible official with final say on residential project permits, and a single point of contact for each application.
One named official will own residential permits by mid-2027
By June 30, 2027, about eight months away, cities and counties planning under the Growth Management Act must name a permit responsible official with final say on residential project permits, and give each application a single point of contact. That is meant to give you one person to call. For permit managers, there is a second job: the Department of Commerce reports that permitting software, primarily due to age, often does not track when a review is paused, and those dates decide both refunds and the scorecard.
What to do before your next submittal
Builders, developers and architects:
- Log your own dates for every building permit: submitted, complete, each correction letter, each resubmittal, issued. The state no longer tracks it for you.
- Treat the completeness letter as the starting gun, and make the first packet complete.
- Count correction cycles, not just review days: paused time never shows up in the city's deadline numbers.
- Write down referral dates to districts on residential projects.
- Check your jurisdiction's adopted deadlines before you promise a schedule.
- Ask who your single point of contact will be.
City and county permit managers: name the responsible official and the contact point well before the deadline, and make sure your system records pauses and resubmittals.
Sources
Measured figures come from the Department of Commerce's 2025 report (executive summary, Tables 3 and 6, and Appendix A). Legal status comes from the Legislature. Our multifamily and construction tallies add up the per-jurisdiction tables in Appendix A for the 47 required jurisdictions with decisions to report (Grant County, which was not required to report, is left out). Retrieved October 24, 2026.